


Binary Perspectives

by cheriemelody



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 23:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15230835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheriemelody/pseuds/cheriemelody
Summary: To get closer to Aoi, the secret identity of Blue Angel, Takeru visits the school's duel club. Easy enough, right?





	Binary Perspectives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nehamerchant123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nehamerchant123/gifts).



> I hope you like it! I'm waiting for the day when all of them can finally interact in the real world

“It should be here, right?”

Takeru stopped in front of the door and looked at the sign. He mumbled, “So this is the school’s duel club?”

He silently remained standing there until his duel disk spoke up. “Aren’t you going inside?”

Takeru jumped and held his arm with the duel disk out, glaring at it. “That scared me!”

Flame’s eyeball in the duel disk rolled up in annoyance. “You should be used to it by now.”

Takeru’s face leaned closer to Flame and hissed, “We’re in school! Of course I wouldn’t expect that!”

“If you’re worried about being quiet, you’re making more of a fuss than I did. See, Aoi Zaizen is walking towards you,” Flame pointed out.

A chill ran down Takeru’s spine as he spun around instinctively and hid his duel disk. Aoi looked at him confusedly but continued walking silently to where he was. With his heart pounding from the scare, Takeru stopped himself from sighing in relief.

When she arrived, she asked, “Are you here for the duel club?”

“Y-yeah,” he stammered, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

To his surprise, she gave a small smile. “Well, feel free to come in.”

She opened the door and went inside, but Takeru simply stood there staring. His heart was still pounding, but now it was for a completely different reason.

“For the second time, aren’t you going inside?”

Takeru let out a yelp and then glared at Flame again. “I am, just give me some time!”

Flame’s eye narrowed into a crescent shape as he chuckled. “But if you wait outside too long, it will seem weird to her.”

At that, Takeru hurried inside. When he entered, he saw the members of the club--excluding Aoi, who had already been looking expectantly at the door for him to enter--turning to look at him. One of them immediately called out, “Hey, are you the new transfer student?”

Calming down his nerves, Takeru smiled. “Yeah, I transferred only a month ago. I’m surprised you noticed.”

The rather round guy seemed familiar, but Takeru couldn’t remember who he was. _Oh well,_ he thought, _if it’s important, it’ll come to me eventually_.

Smiling smugly, the student said, “I’d notice anyone with a duel disk like that! It’s just like Fujiki’s.”

“Shima,” another club member sternly said, “we should introduce ourselves first.”

He deflated. “Okay…”

One by one, the club members introduced themselves. When it got to Naoki Shima, Takeru finally remembered that in Link Vrains he was Brave Max, Playmaker’s supposed best friend (until Soulburner replaced that spot, which Takeru might have felt a bit too happy about). Aoi was one of the last to introduce themselves, and Takeru realized that she was the only girl in this club. Then he couldn’t help but wonder if she got lonely since it didn’t look like she was very close to the other members.

After being the last one, the president explained, “The club usually has a conceptual lecture every day, but today we were planning to have a dueling session. Are you fine with that, Homura?”

The question took him off guard. “Yeah, it’s fine. I’m just wondering how that’ll work. I have my own deck, but does everyone else have a physical one?”

Naoki answered before the president had a chance to. “We don’t, but we don’t need to go into Link Vrains either.” He points to the computers set on the tables. “You see these? We can duel on those.”

Takeru frowned when he saw that the computer monitors were quite high. It didn’t allow the duelists to see each other’s faces, so what was the difference between this arrangement and the old-fashioned online dueling that existed before virtual reality?

“But there’s a twist,” Aoi spoke up quietly.

Her voice took him by surprise. “What is it?”

She gave a small smile, the same one as before, and explained. “The duelists have to sit side-by-side, and they’re both allowed to look at the other duelist’s screen.”

“Oh.”

He couldn’t guess what the point was, but at least it was better than the situation he had pictured. The president explained that while dueling required the skill of facing an opponent without knowledge of their hand, this dueling session arrangement was meant to allow the members to see their opponent’s perspective. He concluded, “Of course, this removes an entire aspect of dueling, but I hope this gives some valuable insight. Don’t be afraid to let me know if this doesn’t work.”

While the other members were looking for their opponents, Takeru went over to Aoi. But when he tried to speak, the words wouldn’t come out right. “I- Would you like to- Uh-”

He didn’t know if Flame being unable to talk was a good thing or not because while Flame wasn’t able to scold him, he also couldn’t stop Takeru from continuing to embarass himself like this.

Thankfully, other than her eyes widening slightly, her expression didn’t change. “Did you want to be partners?”

_Partners,_ Takeru repeated in his mind. _Wait, focus!_ “Yeah!” he answered too loudly.

Aoi simply nodded in response and motioned for him to follow her. When she sat down in front of a monitor, Takeru took the seat next to hers. It only took a short time for the computers to turn on. Aoi showed him on her screen which program to use.

After he opened his program, Takeru asked her, “Which deck should I use?”

She blinked. “You can make the deck that you normally use. I don’t mind waiting.”

“Okay.”

Hopefully it didn’t take too much time. He took out his deck and spread it out in front of him. While he inputted the contents into the computer, Aoi peered over and remarked, “Oh, a Fire King deck?”

Takeru paused and smiled at her. “Yup. Just a generic fire deck.”

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s that generic.”

He laughed. “Thanks. I actually like it a lot.”

He was surprised that he did, even though he hadn’t seen this deck for a decade. It was the deck he had used before and during the Lost Incident, so he was surprised that it didn’t trigger any of the negative emotions and memories from then. If anything, while he continued adding the cards from the table to the screen, he felt like he was revisiting some old friends.

Aoi remarked, “I’m not surprised. It’s an archetype where the monsters continue to rise up even after getting destroyed.”

However, at her comment, a memory did surface. In that corridor, sometimes after getting shocked as punishment for losing, he hadn’t felt like getting up. Whenever that had happened, he would remember that his parents were waiting for him, and he would get back up, determined. If only they had actually been there when he returned.

“You okay?”

Takeru snapped himself back into reality. He glanced over at her quickly before returning to the screen and laughed nervously. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

_This wasn’t how it was supposed to go,_ he thought to himself while finishing up. “Sorry, that took a while. We can start now.”

Before the duel started, both of them looked at the others’ hands. Takeru couldn’t help but ask, “You play Evilswarms?”

Aoi smiled at his reaction. “Surprised?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. He didn’t want to ask for a reason, though.

As they dueled, Takeru commented that looking at Aoi’s hand felt like cheating. She responded, “I can see yours, so it’s even.”

“You’re right, it just feels weird.”

As the duel continued, they both agreed that the setup didn’t really work. If they both had knowledge of the other’s hand at any time, they were much more focused on the possibilities of the duel’s outcomes rather than seeing from their opponent’s perspective.

Before Takeru knew it, it was already time for the club meeting to end. He realized that he barely had time to actually talk to her.

“It was nice meeting you! So, see you tomorrow?” _Smooth, Takeru, real smooth._ The fact that his hands were shaking didn’t help.

Her eyes widened almost comically. “Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

Before he could get even more embarrassed, he left the room as quickly as possible. Then Flame finally spoke up, “That was painful to watch.”

“You think!?” Takeru whined.

Once he exited the school, he stopped and took a short break. He pressed his hand against his chest and felt that his heart was still pounding. He breathed in and let out a deep sigh. He whispered to himself, “I just hope she doesn’t get the wrong idea.”

“About what?”

“Oh, I guess you weren’t there that time. Well, Yusaku told me that people usually approach her so that they can get closer to her brother.”

“I see.” The eye in the duel disk closed. “Making a fool of yourself might have actually helped you, then.”

“How does that work? Also, you’re not helping.”

The eye opened. “I’m not? I was reassuring you.”

Takeru gave up and sighed. “Whatever. More importantly, do you think she suspects anything?”

“If she does, I couldn’t tell. It might be easier to tell if you talk to her tomorrow.”

“Maybe.” He sighed again. “How did I get involved in this?”

“Do you need me to tell you?”

“That was a rhetorical question.”

Takeru visiting the Duel Club had been Kusanagi’s idea. To be more accurate, this had been Take Two of attempting to befriend Aoi Zaizen (since Yusaku for the life of him wouldn’t try to get closer to her). So Takeru had decided to take up that role. However, he wasn’t sure if he did any better than Yusaku did.

In the end, he decided to follow what Flame suggested to wait until tomorrow and see from there.

* * *

The next morning, while Takeru walked to the school entrance, Aoi called out from behind him. Takeru slowed down until Aoi caught up to him. “You’re Takeru Homura, right?”

“Right.” He hadn’t expected her to talk to him right away. Wait, wasn’t this how Aoi had told Yusaku to leave her alone? She was smiling, but who knew how she really felt.

“We didn’t really get to talk much yesterday.”

“Yeah,” Takeru said, relieved. If she took the trouble to start a conversation with him, he probably hadn’t messed up yesterday. Looking at her more closely, her smile seemed much more welcoming.

“Did you enjoy the club? Like the president said, it was different than usual.”

He nodded. “I had fun dueling you.”

Her smile widened. “Same for me. I wish we could have a normal duel soon.”

_We already did, and it was amazing,_ Takeru thought. “Me too,” he agreed. “Do you think we can for today’s meeting?”

“Oh.” her eyebrows furrowed in thought. “Probably not during today’s meeting. Maybe we could squeeze one in before it starts?”

“Sure thing,” he replied as they both entered the school building. He then stopped and turned to face her. “I’ll head over there as soon as class ends.”

She cheerfully nodded. “Okay! I’ll see you then!”

* * *

_So much for that_ , Takeru thought as he rushed down the hallway, unable to calm down. He wouldn’t be able to make it to the club on time, let alone for his duel with Aoi. One moment he and Flame were bickering like usual, and then--he couldn’t even remember what it had been about--he just couldn’t bear to be in the same place as him. So he messaged Yusaku that he would leave his duel disk in his locker and asked him to pick it up.

He walked even faster so that he was almost running. Times like these, where he was so furious that he couldn’t think or remember anything, he just had to move. Just when he thought he might have moved away from his fake self back at home, _this_ happened. And now he even didn’t remember why. Pathetic.

Before he realized it, he arrived at the front of the duel club. He decided to stop there and try to calm down. Why did he have to come here, he was really not in the mood, and the club had probably already started--

He opened the door, but the emptiness of the room surprised him. Was the club meeting canceled? He was about to leave when he noticed someone sitting inside.

“Hello?” he called out, concerned.

Aoi silently looked up at him, her expression blank. Takeru gently closed the door behind him.  Thankfully, at a closer glance she didn’t seem too upset. He pulled out a chair and sat across from her. He stammered, “Sorry I was really late. I didn’t forget, but something happened after school ended.”

She gave a little shrug. “It’s fine.”

When Takeru simply stared in response, she gave another one of her small smiles, but this time there was definitely a tint of sadness there. “Really, it’s fine,” she repeated. “I’m not mad at you.”

“But are you okay?” Maybe not the right question to ask, but he couldn’t help but worry.

“It could be worse. I’m not really upset, just in a weird mood.”

Takeru looked like he just realized something. “Oh, uh, do you want me to leave?”

Her smile grew, making it seem more genuine. She pointed out, “You could have asked that right as you came in.”

He rubbed the back of his head nervously. “Sorry.”

She shook her head. “I’m just saying it. Please don’t leave. I still want to duel you. But,” she looked at his arms, “you didn’t bring your duel disk this time?”

“I didn’t,” he murmured, feeling his heart sink. Neither Flame nor Takeru had been completely in the wrong, but it shouldn’t have ended this way. Besides, regardless of how Flame sometimes spoke to him, during the short time they had known each other, he had always been there with him when he needed him most. Simply not having Flame next to him already felt wrong.

Aoi said, “You know, you don’t look too good yourself.”

“You can tell?”

“It’s pretty easy to tell how you’re feeling.” She laughs softly. “But other than that, I can’t tell what you’re thinking. Like right now.”

Takeru had been staring blankly at her, so now he shook his thoughts away. “You’re making me sound so mysterious. I was just having a really strong sense of déjà vu.”

Aoi tilted her head slightly. Takeru explained, “What you said was almost exactly what a friend of mine said to me once.”

“A friend, huh?”

Takeru smiled gently as he remembered that conversation. How was she doing now? He already missed her and her smile…

Aoi explained, “You know, I’m usually bad at telling how others feel, let alone guessing what they’re thinking. That’s why while I was waiting for you, I kept thinking about that setup. I wished that I could see from someone else’s perspective like I could see your hand, even if it meant that you could see mine. It’s funny, isn’t it? I’m putting too much meaning into it.”

Takeru gave some thought before speaking. “I don’t think so. Of course you would want to see from another person’s perspective. Also, everyone puts meaning into things that matter to them. You love dueling, don’t you? If you can see how your opponent will play, that’ll give you an edge in dueling.”

“Thanks, that’s reassuring.” Aoi really did look relieved.

Takeru answered, “Yeah, no problem.”

“But I can’t help but wonder if I would be better at it if I had a close friend.”

“Maybe,” Takeru admitted. If it weren’t for Kiku being there for him, he knew that he would have fallen into darkness forever, unable to understand anybody else who hadn’t gone through the Lost Incident.

“Oh, by the way, are you friends with Yusaku Fujiki?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“I kept seeing you two together, so I guessed.”

“I see.”

“He helped me out a lot once. He’s a good guy.” For some reason, her expression turned sly as she casually added, “In my opinion, just like Playmaker.”

_What?_ That last sentence took him by surprise. Now Aoi was outright smirking at him. “Am I right, _Soulburner_?”

* * *

Yusaku found Naoki sitting with his tablet and walked over. Unlike previous times, Naoki noticed him approaching. He smiled and waved. “Hey, Fujiki! Do you need anything?”

Naoki most likely already figured out that Yusaku usually only approached him if he needed information. However, he didn’t seem to mind this. Maybe this was because it made him feel somewhat important. Yusaku was just speculating at this point.

“Doesn’t the duel club meet today?” Yusaku asked him.

“It was supposed to, but it got canceled today. I dunno why. Hey, is it ‘cause you want to visit it again?”

“I’m looking for Takeru.”

“Oh, that makes more sense. He joined recently but it looks like he’s going to stay. But I dunno where he could be. Maybe he didn’t get the message, so he might still be there.”

“Alright.” Just when Yusaku was about to leave, he stopped himself. He added, “Thanks for the info.”

When Yusaku left, Naoki let a wide grin form on his face.

As Yusaku quickly walked to the duel club, Ai asked from his duel disk, “Do you think Takeru will really be there? I thought he changed his mind after he put Flame in the locker. Geez, we even had to go pick him up.”

“That’s the best lead we have. Also, if he is there, then Aoi is probably still there with him.”

“Hmm,” Ai hummed, his eye in the duel disk narrowing. “If that’s the case, Takeru and Aoi would be in the same room together, all alone together. Oh! Maybe right now, they’re making out~?”

Yusaku quickened his pace. “Shut up.”

“Or maybe,” Ai’s eye widened, “what if it’s like _those_ movies where they’re doing _more_ than that, like-”

“ _Shut up_!”

When he turned the corner, he saw Takeru and Aoi leaving the club room. As soon as Yusaku’s gaze met Takeru’s, Takeru averted his eyes. Strange. His gaze shifted to Aoi, who seemed cocky. Weird. Yusaku called out Takeru’s name, and Takeru looked back at him, almost ashamed? He wished that the conclusion he came to from their reactions was false. Aoi smiled widely and waved at him. “Do you have his duel disk?”

“Yes,” Yusaku answered hesitantly.

“Good. We can’t go into Link Vrains without it.”

His wish didn’t come true, but he pretended to be clueless. “What do you mean?”

Aoi saw through his act. “It’s no use. Everything makes much more sense now. You’re just going to have a hard time convincing me otherwise.”

When Yusaku glanced at Takeru, Takeru let out a sigh and apologized softly.

Aoi looked around her before continuing. “Anyways, don’t blame him. Ghost Girl and I had already been trying to look for Playmaker. After Ghost Girl dueled Brave Max, we got a clue that it was probably _you_ all along.” She looked at Yusaku pointedly. “I was actually planning to approach you again, but then Takeru Homura decided to visit the Duel Club. When I saw that the model of his duel disk was very similar to yours, I also remembered that he had transferred right around the time that Soulburner entered Link Vrains and that he had quickly become friends with you.”

Aoi turned to Takeru, who was still gaping, and smiled. “I noticed that you were pretty eager to get closer to me. But for once, I didn’t think that you were trying to get connections with my brother through me.”

Takeru simply nodded while Yusaku asked her, “When did you figure it out?”

Aoi admitted, “Just now. I tried to see his reaction by comparing you to Playmaker and then by calling him ‘Soulburner.’”

Takeru laughed nervously. “I tried to play it off, but it was already too late.”

A voice from Yusaku’s bag scolded him, “I’m away from you for an hour, and _this_ happens. I’d shake my head if I could.”

“Flame!”

Ai muttered, “So you’re finally talking.”

Yusaku took Takeru’s duel disk out of his bag and handed it over to him. Takeru thanked him. “Sorry for making you do this. And,” he looked at his duel disk, where Flame’s eye was shut, “sorry for earlier.”

The eye opened. “I should apologize too. It wasn’t even a big issue, but we both blew it out of proportion.”

“Yeah,” Takeru agreed. He placed the duel disk back on his arm. “Now this feels better.”

“I agree.”

Ai cut in, “Aw~ How cute!”

“Shut up!” both of them said, glaring at him.

Aoi mused to herself, “They seem pretty close to the Ignises.”

Hearing that, Yusaku asked her, “Are you still after the Ignises?”

She admitted, “I don’t know, but I’m reconsidering it. I wasn’t aware of how important they were to you.” She looked back at Takeru and Flame talking to each other. “I’m calling off the rematch. There’s no reason to duel over the Ignis now.”

Flame clarified, “My name is Flame. And it means-”

“Are you sure?” Takeru replied. “I was really looking forward to dueling you. Besides, like you said, it’d make up for me being late.”

Flame said, “Wait, Takeru, what about me?”

Aoi sighed. “We don’t have to duel over you. This time at least.”

“Yes!” Takeru cheered.

“Uh,” Ai groaned, “Yusaku, are we joining?”

Yusaku followed Aoi and Takeru back into the duel club room. “We should.”

Takeru and Aoi stood across from each other, raising their duel disks.

Aoi winked at her opponent. “I’ll pay you back this time!”

Takeru’s grin twisted into a smirk. “I won’t let you!”

Ai exclaimed, “They’re already going off! Wow, it looks like you’re enjoying yourself.”

Smiling, Yusaku explained, “I like duels where you can’t tell who will win.”

All three duel disk glowed as they chanted the same words:

“Into the VRAINS!”


End file.
